VII. Seventhly, Consider, that all men and women that are desirous to know how it will go ivlth them in another luorld, they must i^eremp-^ torily resolve to he determined by Scripture in the great matters of their interest in Christ.^ This blessed scripture is the great uncontro- verted rule, and therefore if a person can prove from Scripture that his graces are true, or that he is in a gracious estate, or that he has an in-
* See his Treatises published by Mr "Winter, Mr Chambers, Mr Eaton, Mr Caryl, ami Mr Manton, pp. 36, 37.
^ This we believe, when we first begin to believe, that we ought not to believe anything beyond Scripture TerluUian.
262 A CABINET OF JEWELS. [ChAP, I.
terest in Christ, or that he has savingly, graciously stricken covenant with God, then he must resolutely and peremptorily resolve to grant so much as unchangeably to acquiesce in it, to stick fast to it, and to hear nothing against it from the world, the flesh, or the devil. God hath plainly told us in his blessed word who shall be saved, and who shall be damned ; though not by name, yet by the quahfications by which they are described in the Bible. There are the statute laws of heaven, and the standing rule by which all must be tried. Every man must stand or fall, be eternally blessed or eternally miserable, as his condition is con- sonant to or various from the infallible characters of saving grace con- tained in the holy Scripture. Witness that Isa. viii. 20, ' To^the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light (or no morning) in them.' So John xii. 48, ' He that reject- eth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him ; the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day/ Mat. v. 18, 'For verily I say unto you, till lieaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.' So John X. 35, ' And the Scripture cannot be broken,' or violated, or made void. But though this be an indispensable duty, yet certainly there is, especially in times of great afliictions, temptations, desertions, fears, and doubts, a very great aptness and proneness in Christians to expect strange means rather than right means, and new means rather than old means, and invented means rather than appointed means, and to build their faith upon something beside the word, or that is without the compass of the word, rather than upon the plain and naked word itself ; being in this very like to many weak, crazy, distempered, and diseased patients, that are more ready to fancy every new medicine and new doctor they hear of, and to be tampering with them, than to expect a recovery, by going through a course of physic prescribed by the physician that best understands their diseases, and the most proper and effectual means for their recoveries. You know when Naaman the Assyrian came to the prophet Elisha to be cured of his leprosy, he only sent out a messenger to him, who bid him go and wash seven times in Jordan, and his flesh should come again unto him, and he should be clean, 2 Kings v. 10 ; but Naaman's blood rises, and his heart swells, and he grows very wroth, and all because he did not like the means prescribed by the prophet, and because he thought in his own heart that the prophet would have used more likely means to have wrought the cure, verses 11, 12. So many Cliristians, when they lie under great agonies and sore perplexities of soul, and are encouraged to act faith upon the promises, and to rest their weary souls upon the word of grace, they are ready to think and say that these things, these means, will never heal them, nor comfort them, nor be a relief or support unto them, unless the Lord does from heaven, by extraordinary revelations, visions^ signs, and miracles, confirm his promises to them ; and hereupon they make light of the blessed scriptures, which are the springs of life, and the only bottom upon which all our comforts, peace, and happiness is to be built; yea, they relinquish that more sure word of prophecy, which shines as a light in a dark place, 2 Peter i. 19. Certainly the acting of faith ou the precious promises, and the cleaving of the soul unto those blessed truths declared in the gospel of grace, is the most sure, ready,
Chap. I.] a cabinet of jewels. 263